A Whole Lotta Learning Going On
December 07, 2011
By Nancy Anderson, Ph.D.

Scrolling through a list of New York City public buildings that are being propelled into the 21st century with energy audits and efficiency makeovers, I found the monumental art deco Brooklyn Central Library on Grand Army Plaza. As a high school student, I spent many Saturdays there combing through the stacks looking for materials on historical subjects and I vividly recall finding Civil War era documents that crumbled to dust as I turned the pages. Even as a teenager, I felt queasy about having the historical record simply vanish in my hands. Surely, there must be a better way to make this material available, even to the youngest researcher, without losing it by using it!

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X Marks The Spot
June 29, 2011
By Nancy Anderson, Ph.D.

The sun will not set on Article X, part of the recently signed "Power New York Act of 2011" governing the siting of new or the modification of large-scale power plants. An earlier version of Article X included a self-limiting sunset provision that phased out the law on January 1, 2003. Since that time, power project applicants have faced a gauntlet of state and local requirements in addition to the daunting financial challenges that appeared with the Great Recession of 2008 and from 2003 to the present only two permitted repowering projects raised the necessary capital. The new law has no sunset provision.

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Reimagining The Middle Distance
May 16, 2011
By Nancy Anderson, Ph.D.

Starting from the truism that an era's portrait of the future reflects its own image, Laurie Kerr modestly proposed at the final panel in the series Reimagining the Metropolis that we aspire to a clear picture in the 'middle distance'. Twenty years is a workable time frame for making plans and public policies according to Ms Kerr because it allows us to imagine a future we can get to with the tools we already have. She's on to something. As a staff member of the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability and contributor to PlaNYC 2030, her observation serves as a frame for reflecting on where we are and where we could go with the campaign to make high performance building New York City's new normal.

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Dear Sustainability Officer
March 22, 2011
By Nancy Anderson, Ph.D.

I write to comment on the draft rules that the Department of Buildings proposes to add as a new section 5000–02 to Chapter 5000 of Title 1 of the Official Compilation of the Rules of the City of New York concerning benchmarking... with the data submitted in the 2011 cycle, the City will be in possession of a unique real world research opportunity.

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Moral Hazard
January 25, 2011
By Nancy Anderson, Ph.D.

It might be a new morning for nuclear power in America. A decades-long moratorium on construction of new facilities is ending, although the number of new plants likely to be built is anyone's guess, as is their location. True, the furious debate over questions of the safety and sanity of domestic nuclear power is not over, but concerns over climate change, opposition to new coal-fired power plants, and a nuclear power industry able to finance projects with the backing of multi-level loan guarantees may have shifted the ground out from under the moratorium for now.

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Edging Toward Energy Efficiency
November 22, 2010
By Nancy Anderson, Ph.D.

As this tumultuous year winds down, the urge comes over me to do some stocktaking. In light of raging national controversy over the impact of the federal stimulus program as well as profound concern over the value of government spending and the difficulty of assessing its impact, consideration of several local efforts to enhance energy efficiency and save money is in order.

Let’s frame this assessment with the latest figures on New York City’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The newest emissions inventory contains 2009 data, with Citywide and municipal GHG numbers declining 4.2% and 3.5% respectively from the previous year. [i] The inventory attributes declines largely to lower carbon intensity of the electric power supply. Put simply, this means less coal was burned to make electricity consumed in New York City last year. Reductions in our per person consumption of electricity and fuel were offset, however, by increased GHG emissions due to population growth and continued expansion of the City’s building stock.

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Energy Efficiency: Money Isn't Everything
November 04, 2010
By Nancy Anderson, Ph.D.

Really, money isn’t everything, but like good information, it can go a long way when it comes to improving the energy efficiency of big city office buildings. At a November 2010 panel organized by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Point Carbon on innovative approaches for financing energy efficiency in commercial buildings, financial experts took a close look at what kinds of commercial buildings are the most attractive for purposes of making loans to pay for building renovations that would improve energy efficiency. The panel’s energy engineer started from a different entry point and spotlighted efficiencies that could be achieved by operational improvements and other collateral benefits for existing buildings. The policy speaker offered a glimpse into a financing mechanism soon to be announced by the Bloomberg administration.

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